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Council votes to double spending on new streetcars

Everybody got what they wanted out of today&#39;s special meeting of Toronto City Council.

Mayor David Miller, with TTC chair Adam Giambrone in the background, addresses the media after council's vote to spend $834 million on the purchase of 204 new streetcars for the city. The province is contributing $416 million. (CARLOS OSORIO / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

By Tess KalinowskiTransportation reporter

Fri., June 26, 2009

Everybody got what they wanted out of today's special meeting of Toronto City Council.

The TTC and Bombardier got to seal the deal for the purchase of a new $1.2 billion fleet of 204 streetcars.

Mayor David Miller got approval to double the city's investment in the cars to $834 million.

And his critics got to extract their pound of mayoral flesh for Miller's failed gamble to wring $417 million – about one-third of the cost of the cars – out of Ottawa.

"This is an embarrassment to the mayor, it's an embarrassment for the city. All council is doing is cleaning up the mess," said councillor and former transit commissioner Brian Ashton.

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Miller's refusal to accept repeated statements by Transport Minister John Baird that streetcars didn't meet the criteria of stimulus fund was "a shell game in which the mayor lost sight of the pea," Ashton said.

But Miller stood unrepentant in the face of criticism, saying he would play his hand the same if he had to do it over. And, in the end, council voted 36-6 in favour of approving a $834 million city contribution to the project.

The deal means the TTC will have to defer spending $417 million on six other capital projects, including a bus rebuild and a new bus terminal on Eglinton Ave.

The streetcars that move about a million people a week in Toronto are too important to let the Bombardier deal expire at its deadline Saturday night at midnight. To do so risks increasing the price – the rival bidder quoted $500 million more than Bombardier – and forfeiting the province's $416 million contribution.

"This is probably my proudest moment as mayor of Toronto. We have just secured the transit future of this city for a generation, and we did it very quickly and simply by sticking together as a council," Miller told reporters.

"The new light rail vehicles will provide incredible service to Torontonians. They're accessible, they're low-floor, they're modern, and not only that – they will create thousands of jobs in Thunder Bay and around the 905 for the parts suppliers," he said.

But some councillors complained that Miller hadn't consulted them throughout the weeks he pursued Ottawa, nearly costing the TTC its deal and backing them into a corner to approve twice as much funding during a strike by city workers.

"This is a pretty slipshod way to run what we constantly remind people is the sixth largest government in Canada," said Councillor John Parker.

"Streetcars are on the rails, but the rest of how we operate the city has gone off the rails," said Councillor Peter Milczyn, who sits on the Toronto Transit Commission.

"We're going to pay twice what we thought we would pay for streetcars," said Councillor David Shiner, who scolded the mayor for negotiating with Ottawa without including council. City workers are out on strike, "but we have $417 million more to put into this streetcar program," he said.

Councillor Karen Stintz voted for it in the end, but complained she didn't like "being held hostage" by the deal.

There was no mention at today's council meeting of rolling back councillors' pay increase.

The city is working with Ottawa to find Toronto projects that would fit the stimulus criteria, such as parks and recreation, sidewalks, water and transit. No details of the application were available, but the city reckons its share of the federal money on a per capita basis comes to $312 million.

"We're asking for everything we possibly can that fits within the rules that's been approved by council in our capital budget process, and the amount of funding we get will be up to them," Miller said.

Today's meeting was held at the Toronto Convention Centre instead of strike-bound city hall, a decision Miller said was vital to allow the public to attend without having to cross picket lines.

TTC chief general manager Gary Webster said none of the projects being deferred would put service or public safety at risk, including the $258 million taken from the bus rebuild program – about 70 per cent of the money set aside for it. In the next two years the TTC will strip down a bus to see what the cost of the re-build would be.

"There's about $120 million left in that budget. If we find, a year or two from now, there's more money required we'll identify that for the budget process," he said.

"If you compare the state of the bus fleet today with the state of the streetcar fleet today, the streetcar fleet is aging, it's unreliable, the oldest cars are 30 years old and need to be replaced, that's what brings us here today. The buses are in pretty good shape. The average age of the buses is shrinking down, they're five or six years old," he said.

Bombardier vice-president Mike Hardt said his company is "thrilled'' that full funding is now in place for the $1.2 billion contract.

Minutes after the city council vote passed, Bombardier received a notice from the TTC, which clears the way for the contract to be signed in the coming days, Hardt said. He added that full production of streetcars should be underway in just over three years.

Meantime, opposition MPs criticized the federal Conservatives for failing to support the streetcar plan.

"The streetcar deal will provide over $200 million of tax revenue to the federal government. You have City of Toronto taxpayers, through their property tax, now subsidizing the much richer federal government. It's absurd, it's obscene and it shouldn't continue," said NDP infrastructure critic Olivia Chow.

Although Ottawa has failed the city so far, "The idea that it would stiff the city of its fair share is very hard to believe," said Liberal infrastructure critic Gerard Kennedy. "I don't think people in any part of the country want to see the government play personal political games with this stuff, so there is obviously a way, with flexibility on the part of the federal government, to infuse stimulus funding in a way that enables this transit project."

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